We immediately got on a train and headed for our many hour drive to Rome.
We had had a mini disaster in this time. When I had booked reservations for the second half of our trip, hotels.com had replaced my dates, autofill style, so that we were booked for the same night in Venice as we were in Rome. Luckly, Maggie got my frantic emails and made some calls for me to help get it sorted out. We had a place to stay, thank God and Maggie. The first thing we did was find our hotel. The concierge asked us to switch to one of their other hotels, they had overbooked, but we declined, as it was closer to our first destination, the Colosseum. We were so excited, we didn't even shower, we just left. We walked for a little while, and look what came into view
We opted to see Palatine Hill first, as it was getting hotter by the minute and it was all open, we figured afternoon at the Colosseum to block some of the sun. It was amazing.
For the most part we didn't know what we were looking at, (really, you should hear my commentary on our video, "this is...no this is.....i think this is it finally,") but the juxtaposition of the ancient and the modern was so bizarre to me.
Zacman, sweating his butt off already
We hid in a tunnel for a little while to try to cool off. A little scene had been preserved in the domed ceiling.
A sort of panorama of what we were seeing
The Arch of Septimus Severus, a triumphal arch!
From there, it was time, the Colosseum awaited. Up several flights of stairs, which I for some reason, hadn't expected, we walked out into the open areas.
Beautiful
Zac and I
Its hard for me to imagine that so many years ago, real Romans, in their real Roman sandals (mine were from Kohl's) marched in to this place to watch man battle beast. So strange to think.
The exhibits inside the walls of the Colosseum were amazing. They had the skeletal remains of some of the animals that had been fought, deer, bears, lions, tigers and ostriches...they shot arrows at the birds as they ran.
Since Zac is so big, I wanted a comparison picture of him and the "colossus"
The passing of hours was fast, and we eventually left and caught a quick ride to the Trevi Fountain. It was considerably less spectacular than the Colosseum, but after all day in the heat, I found that I would gladly have climbed in for a soak. You would have too, trust me.
A block or so from the fountain we stopped and ate dinner. We took a long stroll after that to the Spanish Steps. At the top is a church, the Trinita dei Monti. We looked around inside, and snapped a few pictures outside in the setting sun.
The steps from the top.
Me, half way
And a view back up the stairs.
After a long day....long, hot, dusty day, we finally made it back to our hotel. It was being renovated and our room was hysterical. Do you remember that scene in Garden State where he puts on the shirt in the bathroom and the walls are covered in the same fabric he has on, well, that was kinda what our room was like. Bottom to top, incredibly ornate overbearing fabric. The bathroom was beautiful. Marble with an amazing shower with those water tiles that surrounded you. We were so sad though.....we were so ready to be clean, but alas, no hot water. We called to the front desk, he said he'd be right up, he never showed. Zac went down. A plumber was coming, 45 minutes later, nothing and the front desk man says he can do nothing. What about the other hotels they own???? By this time it was 11:15 and we were exhausted. I was pissed, but Zac refused to switch hotels. So, with the mix up on hotels.com, we ended up paying for 2 nights, in a hotel more expensive because of the new renovations, that had no hot water. This is Zac at the end of the day...resolved to being let down. Oh well thought, like they say, when in rome..........
PS...the blue and gold bedspread, thats what the walls were, and the chairs, and the tapestry.
Makes me wish I would have made it to Rome!
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